Pietas and the ‘Other Camões’ — subversive translation and allusion in The Lusiads
2019; Oxford University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/crj/clz004
ISSN1759-5142
Autores Tópico(s)History, Culture, and Diplomacy
ResumoIn Anglophone classical reception scholarship of recent decades, Luís de Camões’s Portuguese Os Lusíadas (The Lusiads) has been characterized as the quintessential pro-imperial epic of the early modern period. This article examines a much-discussed instance of anti-imperial dissent within the poem, focusing on literary allusions to — as well as tendentious translations of — Virgilian pietas by its Portuguese cognates piedade (‘piety’ or ‘pity’) and piedoso (‘pious’ or ‘piteous’) at the end of Canto IV. Building upon Lusophone scholarship that emphasizes the ambiguity and pessimism of the Old Man’s speech at the conclusion of that scene, this article argues that Camões’s classical allusions in the preceding stanzas engage critically with Aeneas’s abandonment of Dido in Aeneid 4, subverting the Virgilian ideal of pietas as a political virtue and offering an implicit critique of imperialism that runs counter to the poem’s overt praise of Portugal’s overseas conquests. By placing this dissenting voice in the mouths of Portuguese characters, Camões echoes the ambivalence of other contemporary Portuguese writers, who worried about the negative effects of overseas empire upon the Portuguese homeland.
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